Exhibition Gallery

Each pixel in the picture shows the result of a gravitational simulation between a binary and a single black hole, where the x-axis is the initial binary phase and the y-axis is the impact parameter. The three black holes often undergo a chaotic dance before an endstate is reached. Often the dance is vital for at least two of the black holes, as the red and black colors indicate a black hole collision. The remaining colors indicate different ways for the black holes to survive the interaction. By counting the black and red pixels, one can show that more than one percent of all black hole collisions forming in dense stellar systems throughout the universe will have a very special gravitational wave signal that can be observed here on earth. The picture also shows that the chaotic three-body problem is not as chaotic as one might think.

Colorful Black Holes

Johan Samsing (postdoc)

Department of Astrophysical Sciences

Each pixel in the picture shows the result of a gravitational simulation between a binary and a single black hole, where the x-axis is the initial binary phase and the y-axis is the impact parameter. The three black holes often undergo a chaotic dance before an endstate is reached. Often the dance is vital for at least two of the black holes, as the red and black colors indicate a black hole collision. The remaining colors indicate different ways for the black holes to survive the interaction. By counting the black and red pixels, one can show that more than one percent of all black hole collisions forming in dense stellar systems throughout the universe will have a very special gravitational wave signal that can be observed here on earth. The picture also shows that the chaotic three-body problem is not as chaotic as one might think.